Nice article MR.M. And I agree that work needs to be done on both ends. If we say we are pro life, then we need to echo the call of Mother Theresa when she said, don't kill the child, I'll take the child, my order will take care of it. It is this attitude that is needed.
Giddyup, Come on. You don’t see how I could perceive: & as being particularly dismissive? Then you claim that I about abortion, which is the farthest from the truth. And, that any woman who weighs the morality of abortion in considering the procedure finds herself merely by the wrenching gravitas of the decision and the procedure? I thought it’s pretty obvious from what you wrote that you never read or didn’t comprehend what I had to write. This is completely fine, certainly, as usually but especially on this issue I am excessively repetitive in articulating my thoughts, but again, why choose to criticize or respond to me if that’s the case? But I’ll answer your questions: 1) Choice vs. Life: If you read any of what I wrote it’s pretty clear that what concerns me, almost solely, is the life aspect of this. I don’t think a woman has the right to abort a fetus that has achieved a certain state of consciousness or, perhaps, neural development which allows it to feel pain. However, it’s also clear if you read what I wrote that I don’t think that this consciousness exists, certainly in the initial stages of embryo formation, and probably for many months afterward, when the fetus is merely an ever-aggregating mass of undifferentiated cells not unlike any other species’ asexually dividing mass of undifferentiated cells. 2) Woman’s vs. Child’s rights: Again, it’s pretty obvious that I think the child’s rights are paramount here. However, though you summarily dismiss it as “common sense,” and therefore not worthy of discussion, I think it is entirely correct to question when the fetus becomes a “Child.” 3) When Life begins? Well, you’re right on this count. That’s what I’m concerned with. 4) What business is it of a man’s? (Human vs. Oppressor): I don’t even get this. Do you mean man as opposed to woman, as in the man’s abortion preference as opposed to the pregnant woman’s decision? Again, my answer is neither. My answer is that when the fetus becomes “alive,” in the sense of achieving some level of consciousness, the rights of the father or the mother no longer matter. If you mean why is mankind fiddling around with abortion, as opposed to some idea of God(s)’s decree or prelapsarian “Nature,” I think it’s pretty obvious why he does so: because he can, and because he (and she) want to. Did I leave anything out? Well, yeah. I venture to say that it’s nearly impossible to define the issues involved in abortion in four bullet points. I don’t mind that you disagree with me; in fact, in terms of debate or discussion, I prefer it. But twhy77 and MadMax pretty clearly disagree with me as well, but offered some excellent points of contention to discuss. So we pointed out what we saw as flaws/ potential limitations in each others’ thinking. Nothing personal; I legitimately love good conversation. A conversation, even a virtual one, is no good if one side clams up after an ill-formed sentence or two, and tells the other side that he should clam up as well.
Twhy77, To your first post NRO post; I haven’t read the other one yet. Excellent, thoughtful reply. I obviously cannot articulate my own thoughts very well either, as I keep finding it necessary to state them differently, but I might get sick from the dust on top of my old Singer paperback, so a few quick points to get to the larger and most important one worth saying: 1. I really like the “human”/”person” distinction, and will henceforth use it. 2. Did you ever watch Alien 4? Lousy movie, but I think that’s the one where Ripley finds out she was brought back as a clone. And at one point she discovers the backroom full of the dozen or so other failed attempts at cloning her: all horrible mutants, none of which came out at all correctly. And how they had to go through hundreds and hundreds of trial & error sheep clones to get to the first (semi-)healthy Dolly. As I understand it, the living teratoma I keep harping about is basically like these clones. On further thought, it’s completely analogous to an actual human clone, may even technically be deemed a type of clone; it has its host’s human DNA. But in the mutation of the gamete to fully realized human cells, the how-to-build-a-human program gets fouled up; the odds of it turning out correctly are slim to none. A slip-up in the normal how-to-build-a-human program results in Down’s syndrome, sickle-cell anemia, or albinoism, relatively minor faults compared to the teratoma blob. It could, in theory, turn out to be a perfectly normal human, Greg Jr., but almost always it ends up like the failed Ripley clones: teeth protruding from the forehead, three legs all different sizes, heart on the outside of its chest, begging you to kill it. It’s real horrorshow, but that’s what I’ve been trying to describe: think of the living teratoma as a failed clone, a terribly failed Ripley. 3. The problem I have with the criticism against Lockwood is that it focuses only on the physical capabilities/responsibilities of the brain itself as the nerve locus/CPU. I haven’t read Lockwood, but this misses my point. I don’t care about the brain’s regulation of, say, human endocrine levels or heart rate. I care about the idea of the person’s consciousness itself, what is later loosely termed the secular “spirit,” which is what I think separates persons from brainless humans, the first stages of feti, and lower plants and animals. Thus, that the fetus is capable of eventual “self-directed integral organic functioning” matters not. This sidesteps the brain’s role in consciousness or personhood. 4. My monk quip was intended in jest, nothing personal; I just loathe using those smiley faces to designate intent. 5. “’[Y]ou" and "I" — is in each case a human, physical organism (but also with spiritual capacities),” therefore, “we came to be at conception,” and that paragraph: The brainless human / early fetus that came to be at conception does not have “spiritual capacities”/consciousness at that time. The brainless human never gets them, never becomes a person, dismantling this idea. 6. “The history of human atrocity makes clear enough that those who wish to license the killing of certain human individuals or classes of human beings will deny that those individuals are "persons," or "fully human," or what have you.” Clever. This is purely philosophical. In response, I ask: why do we view human life as sacred and not other plants/animals. Just because we’re humans? Not good enough: that’s akin to racism, actually speciesism (to borrow the BS PETA neologism). For eons we’ve considered ourselves separate from animals, a chosen species; now even I admit that we’re the most highly developed intellectually of the beings on this earth. Why if not simple prejudice? I submit it is because humans are capable of becoming persons, developing consciousness, not merely existing as plankton do, and that is what we prize in potential persons, not their physical likenesses. Thus, I do not prize the brainless human, nor want to be him, and I do not prize the initially developing fetus. 7. I misunderstood what you meant on a couple points: “designed for,” that you meant human “blastosphore,” etc. 8. I don’t see how you can argue that to go against “nature” is wrong when you simultaneously admit that society, and by implication “persons,” strive to leave behind the barbarous trappings typical of “nature.” I know what you mean; I just think it’s a self-negating contention. 9. A cat’s not human. Worse, it cannot become a “person.” I used the living teratoma example to show that a teratoma is physically a “human.” But in almost all theoretically possible instances, a teratoma can never become a “person.” Thus, as with the brainless humans and feti in early development, I think that teratomas cannot be considered sacred. 10. “If its just a male or female sex organ than it doesn't have this full capability. My science might be a bit off from back in the day, but a gamete can not develop on its own.”: You’re right, a gamete by itself can’t reproduce; but the teratoma is no longer just a gamete; it’s a full human(oid) organism. I think asking it to grow a fully functional set of either male or female genitalia so that it can mate with normal humans might take quite awhile and many a listen to Barry White records, but it’s capable of asexual reproduction, via metastasizing (internally) or simply breaking off (externally) into other human(oid)s. 11. If humans are valuable in and of themselves in existing, why do we hold them uniquely valuable? Surely a skunk or a deer, or even a soap scum would be equally intrinsically valuable. How then are humans different? I submit: personhood sanctifies us. 12. It’s not ok to kill your child to get something more valuable in the offing, because the thing we hold sacred is personhood in its various levels, and your child (if not completely brainless) is a developing person. 13. Following this, when a person falls prey to a permanent coma (let me be specific: one that results in complete brain death), but is still physically capable of breath, food ingestion, etc., I term him no longer a person, merely a human, and no longer sacred. 14. Yeah, Singer does condone infanticide (which is still quite common worldwide). Singer’s definition of personhood, of attaining human consciousness, sets a relatively high bar (some adults never quite get there). That’s why I’m so insistent upon discovery of the age of attaining consciousness, of beginning to become a person. That’s where the secondary argument might come in. When the fetus differentiates enough nerve cells to begin to feel pain, that might be the line of demarcation for me. (As I’ve already stated, I didn’t throw rocks at dogs as a child, so I’m not as stringent as Singer et al. in demanding full human consciousness/ personhood before accepting a level of consciousness that would prevent abortion/murder.) And to the last and most important point: I thank you and MadMax for posting so fully and thoughtfully. To reply in kind to your statements, you forced me to reexamine and attempt to logically justify my own positions on this issue, which I think is the entire point. And I didn’t mean to respond to your, “Existence is everything,” earlier, with the bluntness of: “this is utterly meaningless.” What I meant and should have typed instead was, “I completely disagree.” Again, thanks for the debate.
Originally posted by aghast 1) Choice vs. Life: If you read any of what I wrote it’s pretty clear that what concerns me, almost solely, is the life aspect of this. I don’t think a woman has the right to abort a fetus that has achieved a certain state of consciousness or, perhaps, neural development which allows it to feel pain. However, it’s also clear if you read what I wrote that I don’t think that this consciousness exists, certainly in the initial stages of embryo formation, and probably for many months afterward, when the fetus is merely an ever-aggregating mass of undifferentiated cells not unlike any other species’ asexually dividing mass of undifferentiated cells. <b>MacAghast: See there you go "defining" again. ... "a fetus that has achieved a certain state of consciousness or... blah-blah..."</b> 2) Woman’s vs. Child’s rights: Again, it’s pretty obvious that I think the child’s rights are paramount here. However, though you summarily dismiss it as “common sense,” and therefore not worthy of discussion, I think it is entirely correct to question when the fetus becomes a “Child.” <b>I never said it wasn't worthy of discussion; I only said it is not a convincing argument and certaintly not worthy of justifying the ending of an innocent life. Certainly, you can discuss it but you can never know the answer to that question, so let's be safe and just call it a child from the get-go.</b> 3) When Life begins? Well, you’re right on this count. That’s what I’m concerned with. <b>I'm right but you still hold out for a later timeline... huh?</b> 4) What business is it of a man’s? (Human vs. Oppressor): I don’t even get this. Do you mean man as opposed to woman, as in the man’s abortion preference as opposed to the pregnant woman’s decision? Again, my answer is neither. My answer is that when the fetus becomes “alive,” in the sense of achieving some level of consciousness, the rights of the father or the mother no longer matter. If you mean why is mankind fiddling around with abortion, as opposed to some idea of God(s)’s decree or prelapsarian “Nature,” I think it’s pretty obvious why he does so: because he can, and because he (and she) want to. <b>What I meant was man as opposed to woman. I've seen a lot of criticism in this forum about men having credible positions about abortioin. People spend more emotion defending baby seals here than they do innocent unborns... and those people arent' seals either!</b> Did I leave anything out? Well, yeah. I venture to say that it’s nearly impossible to define the issues involved in abortion in four bullet points. <b>No doubt. What else?</b> I don’t mind that you disagree with me; in fact, in terms of debate or discussion, I prefer it. But twhy77 and MadMax pretty clearly disagree with me as well, but offered some excellent points of contention to discuss. So we pointed out what we saw as flaws/ potential limitations in each others’ thinking. Nothing personal; I legitimately love good conversation. A conversation, even a virtual one, is no good if one side clams up after an ill-formed sentence or two, and tells the other side that he should clam up as well. <b>I've had this debate many times with many people... here three or four times before. I don't care to re-hash every little item with you or anyone. I just inject my POV where and when I see fit. I didn't clam up. My sentences were not ill-formed. Your ego is out of check. My LIFE experience dwarfs your THEORIES. I never told you to clam up either. See above: I just said that your argument if full of holes and that you are blind to them because they buffer your argument. My argument doesn't have to be proven. I'm erring on safety for the sanctity of life. The only abortion that my conscious can abide is one that saves the mother's life... and that is HER choice-- one that I need not criticize.</b>
Let me first attempt to paraphrase your argument before we can discuss the components of it. 1. Human/Person distinction- You make the distinction that An embryo is a human, but not yet a person in the sense that it fails to have conciousness. Therefore with no cogito or nerve receptors with which to feel pain, you water down Singer's infanticide argument to one in which stimuli is the measure of personhood. 2. As far as the taratoma is concerned, it is human in that (well see I'm having trouble agreeing with you on this point) it is undergrowing metabolic cellular life, is seperate from the organism (But it has the same DNA does it not?), it's own being (Lacking personhood of course), and well we have to use the definition of human in describing human in that it comes from 46 chromosomes. I think these are the two main points of distinction, the other aspects are sort of secondary matters not at the heart of the issue.
I don't care about "people." In comparison to the abortion debate, go ahead, club a baby seal if you want to. I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to eat it, and don't see why they should be hunted for sport, but if it's the comparison of the discussion of human life versus a seal's, that's obvious, and I'd venture to say that all but the most extreme PETA member would agree with me/us. Well, you could discuss what might be something you haven't discussed/previously thought of before: that an extremely rare form of cancer is just as physically human and just as alive as a developing fetus in its first weeks/months. I think that's an interesting discussion. Comparison/contrast helps to elucidate what I, you, and society considers to define a human being, a "person," but then again you consider this avenue of my interest "blah blah." Again, you have every right to do so. But if you don't feel like discussing this topic, why start discussing this topic? In a debate, or a discussion, isn't the idea to try to demonstrate the logic of one's ideas? If not, aren't we just screaming at each other? Anyway, because you referred to me as "MacAghast," I'll stop there. I assume you meant that as a slight against the length of my posts or an inference to some "out of check" ego, but I'll take it as a reference to the lucidity of my argument, and as an extreme compliment.
OK, cool. 1. I'm using the distinction between "human" and "person" that the article you excerpted made. Yeah, as I read the article, basically the "human"/"person" difference is easier to say than "physically human"/"human that's attained a certain level of consciousness." And yeah, I probably disagree with Singer, as I remember him, in regards to the extent of consciousness required to make a living being worth saving. What I meant was, if I can help it, I don't club baby seals, I don't torture small animals, but I'm eating a bag full of carrots this minute. So, unlike Singer, maybe it's acceptable to save the fetus/baby at the point when his nerve complexity reaches a point to understand, not just the most elemental response to stimuli (that's cellular), but pain as (not necessarily you or I feel it) an animal that I would purposefully avoid hurting if I came across it on the street. I don't want to get caught up in the vegetarian/pain aspect here; what is important in that aspect, to me, is that it is a sign of a developing (eventually person's) consciousness. Is that intelligible? 2. OK. Again, as I understand it, a living germ cell taratoma is pretty much the same thing as a human clone; in fact, I think (though I have not corroborated this: most of the stuff I've read on the subject doesn't get into the metaphysical aspects of the cancer, but just on getting rid of it to cure the patient/host) it's pretty much the exact same thing as a human clone. They both come from a single cell; both have the same DNA as their hosts. It's just that the teratoma DNA gets intensely screwed up by the process. That's what I meant by the Alien 4 analogy. (Have you seen that movie? It would make a lot more sense if you had.) And like your article posited, we have to consider a human clone to be the indirect product of sexual reproduction / fusing of gametes, just one generation removed. Does that clear that up?
Well just off hand on the teratoma thing before I have to do some work, I just want you to stick around.... The Clone still needs to grow in an embryo and won't grow as a somatic cell or as DNA left alone in a petri dish. I've never seen Alien 4 but I can imagine what you are talking about when you describe the scene. That said, the teratoma doesn't seem analagous in that it grows on its own. Also, when a clone is made, what egg do they fuse it with and why does it not have any of those characteristics. I'll have to do some research and find out if its ok to kill evil clones because they don't have souls...but for the time being I'll just leave you with that... I'll get back to you quickly as soon as I finish this task at work...
Well then I graciously accept your compliment, and ask you to ignore the first part of that sentence. Seriously, that your life experience has colored you and your outlook I do not doubt, and it's probably an even sorer subject for you than it is for just about everybody else, and if your initial abrasiveness was a product of that, then please forget my taking humbrage. I'll let it drop.
It's intelligeible yes. So you conceed the following, that the embryo in a mother is in fact a human? Correct? Once again I turn to an excerpt from the Gerorge article: It will not do to say that these are human beings but not "persons." You and I are essentially human, physical organisms. That is, we do not have organisms; we are rational, animal organisms. Therefore, we — that is, the persons we are — come to be precisely when the animal-organisms we are come to be. The human person is a bodily entity — not a mere consciousness using a body — and so the human person comes to be at conception. Nor will it do to say that the individual that you are did come to be at conception but that you became valuable, or deserving of respect, only much later in your duration. You yourself and I myself are intrinsically valuable, not mere carriers or vehicles for what is intrinsically valuable (such as pleasant or interesting experiences). For, if we were mere carriers or vehicles of what is intrinsically valuable, it always would be permissible to kill one child provided people agreed to replace him or her with two others. But that is ludicrous. Therefore, persons, at whatever age or condition, are valuable simply by virtue of being persons, that is, things that have the basic capacity to shape their own lives, even if it may take them some time to develop that capacity, or even if some defect blocks the actualization of that capacity. All persons, of whatever race, sex, nationality, or age, are deserving of full respect, and none should be treated as mere means for use — for example, dissected for their body parts — by stronger persons. Finally, the pro-life position is widely reported (even by some not hostile to it) as being opposed to stem-cell research because human embryos "are life." This is inaccurate. They are not just "life," or even human life, but distinct, individual, living members of the human species, just as you and I were at an earlier stage of our lives. The proposal to dissect these individuals for their spare parts — and to implicate all of us in this injustice by publicly funding and promoting it — is grotesquely immoral. Robert P. George (a different article) http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-george072001.shtml I think these are pretty hard arguments to refute.
Good point; didn't pick up on that at first. It sprouts from just the one gamete mutating, instead of one gamete fusing with another. But's it's still analogous to a clone cell sprouting, I think. My knowledge of Dolly/ the Raelians / Copycat is limited, but I'm almost positive they take the clone cell and microscopically insert it in vitro into an unfertilized ovum. But the clone cell and the ovum do not sexually fuse; they do not germinate. The ovum just acts as the original cell membrane for the blastula creation/ makes it possible to begin dividing. And what's weird about the clones science has come up with so far is that, although they are genetically identical, they're not exact matches to their "parents." Dolly wound up aging way before her time, theorized to be a result of her aged DNA. Copycat had a different color of fur than its "parent." The second may be a process of some nurture process, but it seems unlikely. Again, I think this is less radical of a concept than I'm making it, as the second twin is by definition a clone of the first. But, if we can agree on nothing else, we can agree that a lifetime of third-rate sci-fi has taught us, just as killing your evil twin is ok, killing your evil clone is certainly permissible, even, I think, considered advisable. (I think if/when clones become mass marketed, many will a spare one just to kill it, fulfill some kind of Freudian self-destructive impulse.)
And I think it becomes evident at this point in the argument that the teratoma is indeed not human, nor is it a person?
Human as George defined it, as separate from the person and human consciousness but, yes, having the physical characteristics of humans, I think the fetus at every point is human. This gets into the old mind/body Manichean distinction. I would agree that this rigid duality is wrong, as each affects the other, but I answer this charge by… It is not permissible to kill one’s child “provided people agreed to replace him or her with two others,” on the basis that one’s child is a “vehicle for what is intrinsically valuable,” or in this case, more valuable. The issue of abortion comes down to what life/lives do we consider sacred, and at what point in those lives do they become sacred, and why. The child in this example is presumably (it does not specify an age) not a fetus in its opening stages of development; it is a child. It is, if not quite there yet, well on its way to achieving full personhood and a person’s consciousness; it is certainly analagous to a dog I would not kick, thus I consider it sacred, and it should not be murdered, even for two more children. This is not sheer utility we’re discussing, trading one apple for two apples; we're discussing what makes life sacred, personhood. “All persons….are deserving of full respect.” But the fly in the ointment is “persons.” The example which disproves the notion that humans are intrinsically valuable is the brainless human (and, also, the living teratoma); again, I argue that if they’re not capable, ever, of achieving personhood, they cannot be considered persons, and thus they’re lives are not intrinsically valuable. The author gets around the consciousness argument here and above by saying that if you try to value consciousness, you also must value the physical human mechanism that gets you to that stage. But, in brainless humans, that stage is never reached. Thus, consciousness can be separated from humanness; there’s the chink in that armor. And what is unconscious is not sacred. No, no , no nono. At the stem-cell stage, embryos haven’t differentiated yet into distinct enough parts. That’s what makes a stem-cell valuable, not intrinsically so, but thanks to modern medicine, increasingly so. An embryo at that stage, I am certain, has no form of a person’s consciousness, has no concept of pain anything like ours. In fact, you’re not killing the embryo when you remove stem cells to use them for medical research; you’re making that embryo immortal. Those stem cells, if properly harvested, will replicate ad infinitum in the laboratory. One embryo’s stem cells have the potential to save the lives of tens, hundreds of thousands. This is the utter tragedy of the stem cell debate. Stem-cells, kind of like the teratoma cancer, have the ability to differentiate into any kind of human cell. Thus, in theory (only in theory, because the pathetic ‘only extant’ lines compromise was a crock), inserting stem cells into the right part of the brain of a Parkinson’s patient would make them differentiate into brain cells, curing Parkinson’s. Same with Alzheimer’s. Want Christopher Reeve to walk again? Insert stem cells in the gaps in his spinal column; he’ll be able to mamba. Eventually, it is thought, with stem cells we can create little organ factories. Got a bum heart? Make a healthy copy of it, and crack her open. Presto-chango. The stem-cell possibilities seem almost endless. They could be, if George’s version of morality weren’t so prevalent, especially with the president (who lied about the number of extant strains, by the way, inflating the number), being studied right now, saving lives potentially, right now. Please don’t conflate this with late-term or partial birth abortion. That is an area of legitimate moral concern; stem cells are not.
No, I don't think so. That the teratoma derived from a gamete that went crazy doesn't make it different from a human clone. As I tried to explain, that human clone didn't mate with the ovum, it just used it a shell, much as the teratoma's mutated DNA used the original gamete's cell membrane as it's shell, both to begin to start reproducing mitotically. To be honest, I'm not sure that the blastula formation is necessary to human development, or to the analogy between this teratoma and a clone's development. However, I see what you're getting at. I also don't know if the gamete mutation undergoes meiosis with a copy of itself to begin to start to reproduce itself, create the living tumor. It's conceivable; but I am at a loss here. I simply don't know. It is evident that the teratoma will not, under any but the most miraculous of circumstances, though, become a person as we define it. Whether it's human will be left up to my further study.
An addendum to the above (when/if I hit 100 I'll throw in to the tip jar): Since both the cloned cell and the teratoma gamete are the products of sexual reproduction, one generation removed, I think the defintion of human still applies to both, that the secondary blastula formation is thus unnecessary. But that's just my extremely limited take on it. (In a way, I am kinda like the kid who sees something cool in the Weekly Readr, or adults with USA Today-style synopses, and starts blabbing about it to others, potential experts who may/do know better.)
I don't think that's the utility he's speaking of, I think he's saying personhood is part and parcel of the embryonic life. It's not that the human life is a shell or robot casing for the computer program that is personhood. Specifically look at when George says this, "You yourself and I myself are intrinsically valuable, not mere carriers or vehicles for what is intrinsically valuable (such as pleasant or interesting experiences)." I think this is the main point that I don't see you addressing. We are not the vehicle for which personhood gets taken for a ride. We are person hood. Once again, he has at this point fused personhood and the embryo created vis a vis a sperm and egg to whatever extent that might be. Therefore, persons speaks fully of the embryo. I don't know if the teratoma neccessarily fits the bill of being human. He's saying they already have personhood (the brainless). I won't debate stem cells here simply because they will get us off track and because that's a whole lotta more research I gotta do in that arena.
